


Facts About the Moon

by ancientreader



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, post-reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-10
Updated: 2013-07-10
Packaged: 2017-12-18 07:28:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/877203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancientreader/pseuds/ancientreader
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A photo album from which nothing can be deduced.</p><p>Nothing awful happens onstage. Warnings would be spoilers, so please see notes at the end if you're squeamish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Facts About the Moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MirithGriffin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirithGriffin/gifts).



 

 

Six months after Sherlock’s return, the crowds of reporters and paparazzi are long gone, the articles have stopped appearing in the _Times_ , the _Mail_ , the _Guardian_. A Google search of Sherlock’s name turns up a minimum of new material. Comments on John’s and Sherlock’s blogs recede to pre-“suicide” levels. The patients at the clinic are all real patients now, not impostors looking for an autograph “for my kids,” or for an interview “that will really take the lid off your side of this story, Doctor.” John is over his anger at Sherlock, mostly, but nowhere near over his joy.

 

The line is thin between magic trick and miracle.

 

He had moved back into Baker Street almost immediately, though there passed another month before the evening when he caught Sherlock (thinner, still weary, the long knife scar below his left pectoral a savage and striated purple like that of John’s own wound the day Mike Stamford spotted him hobbling in the park) looking at him the way a starved child in a fairytale looks at the banquet he knows will vanish if he touches it. Seeing this look John had kissed Sherlock and had brought his arms around him and taken him to bed for the first time.

 

At some point in the four months since, Sherlock stumbled through a few remarks on the subject of John’s importance to him; that was a surprise, him saying it in any way that didn’t amount to a claim of entitlement, but then … well, Sherlock had changed during his time away. Lately he has been returning to lordly, snarky form, but he remains almost alarmingly affectionate. He can’t seem to get enough of John’s body against his, clothed or not, in bed or out, having sex or reading on the sofa. Which is what they’re doing, in their dressing gowns with Sherlock’s feet tucked under John’s thigh, one Sunday afternoon when the bell rings.

 

Neither of them is expecting anyone, of course. They look out of the kitchen window to see a small middle-aged woman with dark hair, carrying a dark-green souvenir Harrods bag. Sherlock shrugs: even he can’t deduce someone he hasn’t met and can’t properly see. John calls down, “Just a moment, please,” and he dresses. Sherlock naturally doesn’t bother. John rings the woman in and listens as she comes up the seventeen steps. Even if he had never met Sherlock he would be able to tell that her approach is trepidatious. He assumes his “Why, no, it’s not at all inconvenient to have you stop by unannounced” face and opens the door.

 

Sherlock gasps.

 

John needs more data; gets it as soon as she speaks.

 

“Dr. Watson, Mr. Holmes. Thank you for seeing me. My name is” – her voice trembles, steadies – “Janice Moriarty.” And now John sees the resemblance, clear as a headline.

 

She stands looking at the floor, clutching the Harrods bag. John would not be able to tell anyone, later, how long the three of them stand there, James Moriarty’s mother looking at the floor, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson staring dumbfounded at her.

 

John’s head is ringing. “Please,” he manages, “won’t you have a seat?”

 

“I’ll make tea,” says Sherlock, quietly. John is too full of amazement already to take note of this.

 

Janice Moriarty nods, still not looking up, and sits in the chair John indicates, his own. She places the bag between her feet. No one less menacing can be imagined; she sits like a person commuting home exhausted after a long day behind a shop counter. Anyone with a heart would offer his seat.

 

Dimly, John is aware of Sherlock assembling tea.

 

Janice Moriarty’s clothes are cheap. This makes the souvenir Harrods bag radioactively interesting. Her posture is protective of it. The bag holds something that matters to her; in it will be the reason she has come.

 

Before John has been able to think of anything else to say, Sherlock appears with the tea. He’s not used the bone china he brought out for Mrs. Moriarty’s son so long ago and that, with dry brotherly snap and snarl, he brings out for Mycroft. Nor has he used the chipped and stained mugs he and John drink their tea from or that John might offer, without thinking about it, to Molly or Greg. Instead he has chosen three plain handsome mugs and a pretty tray John didn’t even know they had.

 

Sherlock pours, offers milk and sugar, sits back and waits.

 

“My son,” Janice Moriarty begins, then gets stuck and begins again, with more success:

 

“I know what James was and what he did. I found it difficult to believe, of course, but eventually I did see that there was a great deal of evidence and it persuaded me.”

 

Sometimes one could hear a little Irish in James’s speech. There is more in his mother’s.

 

“The difficulty. The thing I have difficulty with, what I have trouble seeing—” Her voice trembles again, and again she straightens herself and continues more steadily. “You see, he was a pleasant and lovable child. I don’t know—I don’t know how to make any connection between James as a little boy and the man who—who put bombs on people and made a game of it.

 

“He did that, I know he did that, I don’t pretend to myself anymore that he was innocent. But—”

 

“You want me to tell you when the change came,” Sherlock puts in.

 

Mrs. Moriarty nods.

 

“Give me the album.”

 

She seems briefly startled, but then nods: the leap is what she should have been expecting; this man’s ability to make such leaps is the reason her son is dead, and the reason she is here to ask him to explain that son. Out of the Harrods bag she produces an old-fashioned photo album with clear plastic leaves over sticky stiff card pages. “The Moriarty’s, 1976 – 1994,” reads the neat white label on the cover. John flinches inwardly, but Sherlock takes the album without remarking on the solecism, and begins paging through. John leans in to see, then catches himself: “Do you mind if I look too, Mrs. Moriarty?”

 

She shakes her head. “It’s no matter, Dr. Watson. You work closely with Mr. Holmes, I know. Might be you’ll see something as well.”

 

There is nothing, as far as John can tell, to see. A small, bright-eyed boy. Elfin, one might call him. In his mother’s arms, fresh from hospital; nude on a rug before a fireplace; giggling in his father’s arms, at Christmas time to judge by the holly garland on the wall behind them. That Jim was almost exactly Sherlock’s age, John already knew of course. Now he finds himself slotting a tiny Sherlock face into the photographs of Jim, wondering how and when they diverged. Sherlock, rude, arrogant, often no more honest than it suits him to be; Jim deferential, courteous, ever smiling. John shakes himself, hearing again the conversation recorded on Sherlock’s mobile one day on the roof of Barts. Sherlock is a difficult sort of angel.

 

Jim in shorts, kicking a ball in a park.

 

Family portrait: Janice Moriarty; her husband; Jim beside the family dog, a pretty brown mutt with flop ears. What was the husband’s name? Russ, that was it. He had died when Jim was twelve.

 

Jim at a podium, accepting a prize in primary school.

 

Jim, about ten, dancing with his mother – a wedding: there’s the white-dressed bride in the background.

 

Jim giving a eulogy at his father’s funeral.

 

Jim with a date. “Sandy Wilson” is written under the photograph, “1990! 14 and a hit with the girls!” Sandy Wilson is taller than Jim. Being shorter than his dates is old hat to John, as well.

 

The last few photos are of Jim in his rooms at university. Smiling, holding up a textbook of some advanced mathematics. John has heard of the field but knows nothing of it. He’s used to Sherlock’s intelligence – not that it doesn’t register, but it’s the staple food of his days. The thought of Jim Moriarty working on projects that he, John, could never begin to understand – that brings a chill.

 

Sherlock comes to the end of the album and turns over the back cover with a finalizing snap. The album lies upside down in his lap; he runs his hands along the sides once, twice, then lifts it and hands it back, not ungently, to Mrs. Moriarty.

 

She lays it in the bottom of the carrier bag and looks at Sherlock expectantly; he draws in his chin and frowns. It’s the Sincere Mournful Look, which of course is neither sincere nor mournful. John isn’t easy in his mind to see Sherlock produce it under these circumstances. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Moriarty, there is nothing I can tell you. Your son as he appears in these photographs was a happy and clever child. I’d need to see some material from the years after he left for university.”

 

“There isn’t any.” Pain crosses her face. “I didn’t see him as often as I would have liked. And, well, the police took a good deal into evidence. Papers he had left at home. A few photos.”

 

“I see.” Sherlock stands. “I can’t deduce without data, Mrs. Moriarty. Whatever changed Jim came later in his life. It would be pointless to speculate on what that was.”

 

 _Dismissed._ Janice Moriarty makes no argument. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Holmes.” She gives a little nod. “Dr. Watson.”

 

“Sherlock—” John means to say, “A little respect, Sherlock,” or maybe even “Have a heart, you wanker, whatever he was she’s lost her kid,” but Sherlock narrows his eyes at John so coldly that he is rooted to the spot. Meanwhile Janice Moriarty has picked up her precious Harrods bag and Sherlock has helped her on with her coat. With an immense warm (fake!) smile, he opens the door for her; she walks through, her head bowed, and makes her slow sad way down the steps and out onto Baker Street. The entire visit, from start to finish, cannot have lasted twenty minutes.

 

John gears himself up to remonstrate with Sherlock now that they’re alone, but finds him already sweeping through the door of his (their) bedroom. There is complete silence in the flat. The sense falls over John that something has happened he doesn’t fully understand. It’s a common enough feeling, when he’s around Sherlock, that is to say most of the time. He considers, then goes to the bedroom and stops in the doorway.

 

Sherlock is curled on his side, facing away from John, his dressing gown a blue lake around him. “Out with it,” Sherlock says.

 

“What just happened? You were lying to her, I could see that much, but what were you lying _about_?”

 

Sherlock sits up abruptly, his expression furious. “It’s unbearable sometimes. All this seeing and having _not the faintest_ _notion_ of what you’re looking at. Not just you. Everyone. Mrs. Bloody Moriarty. _How could you not see it?_ ”

 

John gapes, he can’t help it.

 

“He was _always_ Jim Moriarty. In photograph after photograph. With a so-called friend at a birthday party. Five years old. The friend is leaning away from him, her face contorted, a rictus. One can practically hear the adults hissing at her to smile for the camera. With the family dog. He isn’t even touching the animal, he’s only _standing next to her,_ and her eyes are rolled sideways so far you can see nothing in the photograph but the whites. The family dog, _terrified_ of little Jimmy. He’s six years old. She’s a young dog, but she doesn’t appear in any photos after Jimmy turns seven. What do you suppose happened to her? Can you guess, John?

 

“Twelve years old, at his father’s funeral. Delivering the eulogy – so adult. So manly. Do you happen to know how Russ Moriarty died? I looked it up, years ago. He was struck by a lorry while out – this may come as a shock to you – walking with his son James. One asks oneself: what had Russ learned, what might he have seen or said, to buy himself such an early grave? I’ve wondered before this whether Carl Powers was really Jim’s first. Question. Answered.” Sherlock flings himself down once more.

 

John moves, cautiously, closer to the bed. As no booby trap springs itself, he sits down, then lies down, then lays a hand softly in the middle of Sherlock’s back. “Why didn’t you tell her?”

 

“To what end, John? Jim is dead and unreachable. Do you think Janice Moriarty would be happier for the certainty that she birthed a viper? Should I have said ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Mrs. Moriarty, but your son killed your dog, probably after torturing her for some time, and also he shoved your beloved husband under a lorry when he was twelve?’” Sherlock rolls over toward John, trapping his arm. “Or was I right to let her continue grieving for her _pleasant and lovable_ son? What is truth worth, to good people? I wouldn’t know.”

 

John uses the arm that’s under Sherlock to tug him over and press him down. For all his sharp words, Sherlock comes to rest willingly. His back is trembling. “Yeah,” John says, “yeah, you do know. You do.” He rubs circles into Sherlock’s skin, rubs circles into Sherlock’s skin, until the trembling stops.

 

 

*

Whatever else James Moriarty was, he was intelligent, and not for nothing is Janice Moriarty his mother. For many years she was nevertheless, or therefore, able to prevent herself from understanding certain things. Perhaps she should have left it at that; instead, she went to visit Sherlock Holmes and watched him carefully as he looked through her album. Now she spends the long ride on the tube from Baker Street to her council flat with the album open on her knees, pausing on certain photographs. Just before the speaker announces her stop, she puts the album back in her Harrods bag, and as she leaves the station she drops it into a bin. Walking away she looks back at it, once, twice; then she rounds a corner and is gone.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Offstage animal torture and killing. Offstage patricide.
> 
> This story is a present for Mirith, because I have loved and admired her fics for as long as I've been in this fandom, and because she's a glorious friend and the most insightful of all possible readers.
> 
> (Title stolen from Dorianne Laux’s beautiful poem of the same name, which gave me the plot bunny that resulted in this fic. You can read it yourself, and also listen to Laux read it, [here](http://poemsoutloud.net/audio/archive/laux_reads_facts_about_the_moon/).)


End file.
